Which probiotics are best?

My cat, Odie, is on clindamycin for toxoplasmosis. Today was day 5, and his stool is beginning to get soft. Im scared he might be on the verge of getting diarrhea. So before that happens, i thought i should start him on a good brand of probiotic. His vet gave me purina forti flora, but im not sure i want to give this to him or any other cat of mine. The first ingredient listed is Animal digest! :/

If someone has had an experience using good brand of probiotic (human or cat) for their cat, can you please share your experience? Which concentration of microorganism would be best for my guy?
Thanks in advance!

You may get various opinions on probiotics but my vet who I like very much says that fortiflora is the only one that has actual studies to back it up and that it contains all the bacteria it claims to have.

You could also talk to vet about a course of hills W/D which has fiber to Osborn water.

Our vet recommends using probiotics for pets, rather than humans. I've tried a couple, but have had the best luck (Mogli has IBD) with Jarrow Pet Dophilus, though I still alternate with Fortflora and Mercola.

Odie is so picky about what he eats. Sometimes i get so frustrated with him. He only eats dry food and because he has history of struvite crystals and has had complete blockage at age 4, he only eats the SO urinary food. The only wet food he'll ever down is boiled chicken.

About the forti flora, it doesnt have a lot of microorganisms. The only one listed in the ingredient is enterococcous. Is that enough? Just one type of microorganism? In my desperation, i did try it and he rejected it. He was so repulsed that he ran and hid under the bed. My other two cats, however, lapped it up :/

Someone recommended an organic acidophilus, for humans, in the lowest concentration. In fact i even read an article. Here's the link: http://www.vetinfo.com/acidophilus-for-cats.html#b

I need to figure out what to give him fast because i think he has already developed diarrhea. I went to clean the box this morning and i noticed someone has diarrhea and it's probably him because he's the only one sick. I usually follow him to the box so i can see if his diarrhea/stool is bloody, but the past two days, he has mangaed to escape my eye.

@jcat, love your avatar photos! Lol

:lol3: My holistic vet recommends not using pet probiotics. If you read the ingredients on *most* of them (not all!), they are made of "fermentation" product. This means it is not a live culture, and therefore doesn't even technically meet the definition of "probiotic." If anyone wants it, I can provide the study that indicates that in this capacity, the bacteria act as a digestive enzyme. That is not to say it won't stop diarrhea - it may. But it will not colonize the gut with healthy bacteria - which is an important function of a probiotic, especially when an antibiotic is busy killing off ALL the bacteria in the gut.

I work with IBD kitties in several FB groups, and the most effective probiotic used to stop antibiotic-associated diarrhea is a yeast-based probiotic, saccharomyces boulardii. When combined with MOS (mannan oligosaccharides), it has an unbelievable success rate. (It's stopping diarrhea in many IBD kitties NOT currently on antibiotics). TCS member Carolina discovered it when her cats had a clostridium perfringrens infection. She found a UC Davis study where they were treating antibiotic-resistant C diff. One of the owners couldn't afford vancomycin, so they used the S boulardii, instead. And it worked.

There is no literature - other than that one study - that we have found for its use in cats. But there is probably more literature on this probiotic in humans than on any other.

Being a yeast-based probiotic, you can give it to the cat at any time in relation to the antibiotic, because the antibiotic kills bacteria, and it is not bacteria. Being a yeast, however, it does not colonize the gut, and when you are done with the course of antibiotics, you will need to give kitty something to replenish that healthy bacteria. And no, FortiFlora will not do that, being one strain of fermentation product.

The Jarrow Pet Dophilus will, it is live organisms.

I personally prefer human supplements, the larger doses, and a product that contains both aciophilus and bifidobacterum. I use Nexabiotic, as it has all of these and S boulardii in it. I give my cats probiotics daily as an immune system support supplement.

This discusses the subject, and has product links and directions: http://www.ibdkitties.net/Probiotics.html

If using S boulardii, I do recommend the Jarrow with MOS, even though most cats won't eat it just sprinkled on food - and it does need to be given 2x a day.

Hi LDG! Thanks so much for all that useful information. I'm going to check out Nexabiotic. It sounds really terrific since it does both things-replenish good bacteria and stop the diarrhea.

Im confused why so many vets recommend the fortiFlora? I called the ER earlier today to ask the dr what to do and she told me to give him Forti flora even when i asked her about enterococcous being the only microorganism :/

Odie and I are very very grateful for everyone's input, and thank you guys for providing a good support group and sharing your experiences!

So i just discovered that it's not Odie that has diarrhea...yet, it's my older cat, Baby! I've been trying to switch her to wet food for quite some time because she's getting older (10y/o), she's a little fatty (15lbs), and it's healthier to eat wet food anyway. After many months of trying different brands, including instinct, ive found the one she likes! It's called perrfect Bistro from Merrick. She likes it so much she doesnt want any dry food. I probably should have transitioned her properly. She also had some of that forti flora yesterday and today. I probably shouldnt give her that junk...

LDG said:

If you read the ingredients on *most* of them (not all!), they are made of "fermentation" product. This means it is not a live culture, and therefore doesn't even technically meet the definition of "probiotic."

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Stated on the Fortiflora package, so another exception:

Contains guaranteed amounts of live active cultures.

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Contains a source of live (viable) naturally occurring microorganisms

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The Mercola label also has the amount of "billion viable organisms" per serving.

ldg I wonder how accurate your vet's info is? Just looking through the first two pages of pet probiotics (without digestive enzymes) on Amazon, most contain live cultures, including:
Animal Essentials Plant Enzymes & Probiotics, Probiotic Miracle for Dogs & Cats, NWC Naturals- Total-Biotics, Bene-Bac[emoji]174[/emoji] Plus Probiotic Pet Gel, PetImmune Cat, Probiocin Oral Gel, Advita Powder Probiotic Nutritional Supplement for Cats, Nutri-Vet Probiotics with Wild Alaskan Salmon Oil for Cats, Natren Feline Dophilus For Cats, Nutramax 30 Count Proviable Health Supplement

A few others have fermentation product, but most don't.

This one has the S. boulardii and MOS: MitoMax SUPER Probiotics for Cats and Dogs, but is a lot more expensive than the Nexabiotic.

Hi Jcat , i wanted to read reviews for Mitomax but i dont see many. It sure is expensive. I'd spend the money if i could find some reviews. I only see one or two on amazon.

I only found the two at Amazon and one on the Entirely Pets site linked. People are probably scared off by the price.

jcat said:

I wonder how accurate your vet's info is? ...A few others have fermentation product, but most don't....

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:dk: That's just odd. It's not just the vet - here's a paper evaluating pet food claims of containing probiotics: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340078/

"Interpretation of these results is confounded somewhat by the questionable labelling of some products. Twelve diets listed only specific bacterial fermentation products (L. acidophilus fermentation product) as ingredients, while 5 diets claimed to contain both specific organisms and fermentation products. Fermentation products of lactic acid bacteria or bacilli are typically included as a source of enzymes. This does not necessarily indicate that live organisms are present and, based on the definition provided above, these would not be considered to be probiotics. However, the diets in this study that listed only fermentation products in the ingredients also stated directly that they contained probiotics. Therefore, the variable levels of live growth may better reflect misclassification or incorrect advertising of the diets, rather than indicate poor survival of probiotic organisms.[/quote]

Though I guess this doesn't say that fermentation product can't be live....

It is certainly not something easy to quickly research. :lol3: The search terms just do not pull up the correct information!

But thanks for drawing that to my attention. I just don't know what to do with that information. Perhaps, in some instances, if the label doesn't say "live cultures" when the ingredient contains fermentation product, the manufacturer should be contacted.

LDG said:

:dk: That's just odd. It's not just the vet - here's a paper evaluating pet food claims of containing probiotics: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340078/

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I'm familiar with that study, but it deals with probiotics added to commercial pet foods, presumably with a relatively long shelf life, during the production process. Isn't it a stretch to apply those findings to (pet) probiotics that are sold separately, shipped cold/require refrigeration after opening, have a relatively short shelf life and are added to pet food before meals or given separately?

I think you missed my point. I wasn't providing the article as a reference for pet probiotics in general. The only point was the very specific reference to "fermentation product."

As the study stated "Fermentation products of lactic acid bacteria or bacilli are typically included as a source of enzymes. This does not necessarily indicate that live organisms are present and, based on the definition provided above, these would not be considered to be probiotics."

After the comments of my vet, I had taken that to mean that fermentation products were not live cultures.

Upon re-reading this section of the article, as I already stated, that statement in the study does not appear to mean that fermentation product by definition is not a live culture - which is how I took it the first time I read the study.

What do you guys think of half teaspoon of yogurt with live cultures, including lactobacillus and bifidobacterium?

Probably better just to use Kefir. The amount in yogurt isn't enough to do much (usually), and many have very variable amounts. And some cats are lactose intolerant, so it kind of defeats the purpose.

Hi LDG, today i purchased a bottle of probiotic smoothie from kefir. It looked pretty good. It's 99% lactose free, has 12 different strains of active cultures. All three cats were repulsed :/ Im going to post the ingredients. Can you tell me if this is ok? Im going to have to syringe Odie.

I also prefer to use human-grade probiotics with few fillers for my cats. However, I'm having a heck of a time finding one that either 1) they will eat in their food or 2) has a small enough capsule with enough CFUs that I can just pill directly. When I used to use pet probiotics, they seemed to be more well received. They did well on the Dr. Mercola Complete Probiotics (human version) for an extended period of time, but then decided they weren't going to eat it in their wet food anymore. Perhaps something had changed. I have not yet tried Nexabiotic. It doesn't have enough CFUs for Sebastian, but it would be okay for my other two. I might give it a try next time. I am currently using RenewLife probiotics, which are a really good, but super expensive and the cats will not eat it in their food. I had bought the 100 billion CFU one and was dividing it into 4 smaller gel caps as best I could (Sebastian gets 25 billion CFUs once daily). What a pain. As soon as the humidity hits the probiotic, it gets all fluffy and is almost impossible to pour out. I was perusing my local Vitamin Shoppe over the weekend and ended up getting a 50 billion CFU one thinking I only needed to split it in half. This is a little better. What's funny is that I ended up buying this one. If you go to the link, you may chuckle.    But, hey, it does have a decent list of Lacto- strains. One day maybe I'll find the perfect probiotic. 

@goHolistic,
I'm sorry I can't stop laughing!! Yr a sweety! Thanks for mentioning those probiotics. I'm going to go through them. Right now I'm stringing yogurt with live culture, half teaspoon once a day. I don't know if it's the yogurt or something else, but the blood he was having in his stool has now resolved though his stool is still soft. It's not diarrhea so I'm grateful for that.

QueenOf3 said:

@goHolistic,

I'm sorry I can't stop laughing!! Yr a sweety! Thanks for mentioning those probiotics. I'm going to go through them. Right now I'm stringing yogurt with live culture, half teaspoon once a day. I don't know if it's the yogurt or something else, but the blood he was having in his stool has now resolved though his stool is still soft. It's not diarrhea so I'm grateful for that.

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I even told the Vitamin Shoppe employee it is for my cat. He gave me a weird look like "yeh, right". But it really is! I think awkward moments are really funny. 

Anyway, I'm so glad to hear the blood in the stool has resolved!